A major Shia ritual has ended peacefully in Iraq's southern city of Kerbala after the army imposed tight security around 2.5 million pilgrims who had gathered.

However attacks in the north of the country left nine worshippers dead.

Police said a large group of Shia had been returning from the annual Ashura religious ritual in Tal Afar, 250 miles to the northwest of Baghdad, when they were hit by a Katyusha rocket that killed seven.

And in northern Kirkuk, a bomb killed two Shia pilgrims heading to a mosque for Ashura.

Police said sporadic fighting between security forces and gunmen from a messianic Shia cult had broken out again in the southern cities of Basra and Nassiriya, a day after gunmen attacked worshippers and police.

Nearly 70 people were killed and more than 100 wounded in gun-battles after gunmen from the Soldiers of Heaven cult launched nearly simultaneous attacks in the two cities.

But in Kerbala, tight security meant there were no major incidents as pilgrims thronged streets and narrow alleyways for the end of the ten-day Ashura ritual, in which Shia's mourn the slaying over 1,300 years ago of the Prophet Mohammad's grandson.

Among the pilgrims were hundreds of men wearing white robes, who marched through the holy city's streets striking their heads with swords to show their grief at the killing of Imam Hussein.

Imam Hussein's death in the year 680 entrenched the schism between Shia and Sunni Muslims over whom they recognised as the successors of Mohammed.

The split still sharply divides Iraq, with tens of thousands killed in sectarian fighting since the US-led invasion.

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